Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
The Last Diplomat
Cat Farris
Samma and Tark didn't ask to be stuck together, but now they're partners on the adventure of a lifetime.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Kochab
Sarah Webb
A YA F/F fantasy comic about Sonya, a lost skier trying to survive a snowy wilderness and find her way back to her village; and Kyra - a fire spirit trying to fix the home that she let fall apart around her.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Alice and the Nightmare
Misha Krivanek
Alice finally attends University to learn to collect the dreams of humans, meet new friends, and deal with a pesky reflection along the way.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Ride or Die
Mars Heyward
Ride or Die is an LGBTQ webcomic about two street racers who team up with a demon-possessed muscle car in the search for a missing woman, while being hunted by a deadly religious cult.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
The End
August Brown, Cory Brown
Two aliens crash a sci-fi convention and accidentally take seven nerds on an adventure that spans the galaxy!
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Trying Human
IntroducingEmy
Two women separated by over half a century are brought together by an alien-filled conspiracy involving murder, mystery and romance!
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Monsterkind
Taylor C
Wallace Foster, a young, bright-eyed human social worker, has his entire world view rocked when he's suddenly relocated into a city primarily inhabited by monsters.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Gzhel Guardian
Atla Hrafney, nushanchel
The Railway World is a complex, mysterious network of trains, towns and mechanical monsters. Leo is a Guardian of one of these towns, and although their burn-out and depression has taken hold of them, they have one last job to finish.
Star Impact
Jack McGee
A young, energetic woman fights her way up in the world of super-powered boxing after discovering the mighty gloves of her missing idol!
Alexander, The Servant & The Water of Life
Reimena Yee
The 21st century retelling of the life and legends of Alexander the Great.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Quick$ilver
Crypto
The flirtatious, directionless, and ever disastrous Luci searches for excitement in a life of crime, and finds himself caught in a web of messy romance and bad blood.
How to be a Werewolf
Shawn Lenore
Malaya Walters was bitten by a werewolf as a child. After being raised by her human family, she faces the chance to learn what being a werewolf is really like as an adult.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
Scape
Lauren
Sula has always preferred to forge her own path, but before she knows it, she is pulled into the middle of a civil war between man and monster!
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Headless Bliss
Clover
A story about story-telling, and other metaphysical themes such as Nightmares! (Failed) Teamwork! Comedy! And more!
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
The Forgotten Order
Christy
A young witch for whom every spell is a misfire finds solace and friendship in her new companion - a cursed doll.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Cassiopeia Quinn
Gunwild, Psudonym
A cute, pantsless thief is pursued across the stars by a buttoned-up military officer in the spacey, laser-filled future.
Missing Monday
Elle Skinner
Two girls fall in love through a magic door connecting their worlds. When Monday suddenly goes missing, it's up to Foyle to find her. How she's going to navigate an entirely unfamiliar world is another matter.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
The Substitutes
Myisha Haynes
What happens when three roommates accidentally acquire otherworldly and powerful magic weapons destined for someone else?
Within
Verena Loisel
A young hitman meanders between a reality that seems to happen without him, and his dreams where he is lost in an endless house. When he makes an accidental friend, his world is shaken up and he realizes there are things he can't remember about himself.
Love Not Found
Gina Biggs
Abeille is on a quest to find someone who wants to do it the old-fashioned way in a time when touching has become outdated.
Astral Aves
Moon Cabal
A fantasy coming-of-age following the adventures of Astra The Black and friends, as they navigate the mysterious world around them. It's politics, adventure, and the supernatural; oh, and crazy hair.
Goodbye to Halos
Valerie Halla
Cuddles, gay flirting, weird feelings, and magic-fueled knife fights - it's an adventure across the queer multiverse!
Widdershins
Kate Ashwin
A series of light-hearted Victorian-era adventure stories featuring grumpy bounty hunters, accidental thiefkings, and more, in England's magical capital city Widdershins!
Aquapunk
Lo
In an underwater world of unknown coordinates, inhabited by aliens, ghosts, and robots, a young member of a warrior underclass is framed for a crime and goes on the run. Little does he know he is part of a grand design that only gods and ancestors could choreograph.
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
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Sal is taller and, not to be too blunt about it, not as zaftig as Amber. Quite frankly, there’s no way it would fit.
Besides, Sal’s got her leathers and her full-face helmet. She doesn’t NEED Amber’s outfit.
The Femur Remover, she who plays Flight of the Bumblebee on your ribs, using your femurs, after… While she’s defeating you, but before you are totally dead, using Ruth’s R.A. Death Stare®️™️
Kidnapping first please, Amber is an emotional wreck but that isn’t likely to kill her immediately. Now, will Ruth be able to help and not get herself, or anyone else, killed?
Just talk on the way to rescue everyone, you can unpack the emotions and save people at the same time. Heroes always have emotional breakthroughs during violence, right?
From what we’ve seen he isn’t, as long as you’re not Ruth or Howard. He has some personal grudge against their father, which he takes out on the kids (primarily Ruth).
A more sympathetic take than he deserves is that he blames Ruth’s dad for getting her mom killed. Unfortunately, that makes him hurt his only blood relatives left.
Definitely Ruth, probably Howard – though it may ‘only’ be emotional abuse.
My suspicion has long been that Ruth’s mom married and left the country to get away from Clint’s abuse. If there were problems with her husband, it may have been partly that she was grasping for any way out.
While possible, that would imply Ruth’s dad wasn’t a scumbag and that would violate Dumbing of Age casualty. At least one parent must be a pile of crap and probably both.
If Clint’s tirade is anything to go by, Ruth and Howard’s father’s crime was being a “weak and unfaithful collection of mental problems”.
That could be a source of Ruth’s tendency to freeze like a deer in the headlights when the femur-ripping facade cracks. If she strongly resembles her mother, but acts like her father, that could make Clint fly off the handle even worse.
The problem is, we pretty much only have his distorted point of view to go by. As far as I know, Ruth’s parents didn’t appear in the Walkyverse, and Dumbiverse Ruth hasn’t said much about them.
Ruth’s father – Richard “Dick” Lesse – did appear in the Walkyverse. And he did cheat on her mom in that ‘verse at least (and with Billie’s mom, no less!), as Ruth found out to her chagrin when she was babysitting Billie and Walky one fateful day.
We know from Dumbingverse!Billie’s own words that her mom here has a tendency to “do business on every man known to her,” so it’s not implausible to think that Dick Lessick may have been similar.
Certainly possible, but the only evidence for it is Clint’s description and I give less than no credibility to that. The parallel to the Walkyverse is suggestive, but Ruth’s background is sufficiently different that I don’t think it’s necessary.
Still, my main point was that I think your take was far too sympathetic. That Clint’s abusive ways go back farther and don’t just derive from the death of his daughter. His controlling abuse fits perfectly with hating the man who took his daughter out from under his thumb, ruining his plans for her.
Nah, when Ruth told Howie that their grandpa was going to pick them up after their parents died in a patreon strip, Howie’s immediate reaction was ‘Okay. I’ll stop crying.’
So it’s supposed to be taken as read here that Ruth would totally win if they threw down right at this moment, right. Like that statement of confidence is just another sign that Amaziber is way too tired and not thinking straight.
I think Amber’s under selling Ruth a bit. Maybe she’s not Sal level but she’s at least a few tiers above a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses guy. I don’t think Amber could take her sleep deprived.
Now I do want to see who would win in a fight between Ruth and Amber. While I’m sure Amber would win, how long would it take? I’m still kinda fuzzy on what differentiates Amber from Amazi-Girl personality wise, so would Amber go easy on Ruth? Or is Amber the “bad” one? While I’m on the topic, theoretically, who would win in a fight? Amber or Amazi-Girl?
Amber would lose but if the adrenaline kicked in in time, Amazi-Girl would win.
Since they share the same meat-sack (Amber’s term), Amber and Amazi-Girl couldn’t fight physically. But if they fought separately as clones or waldos, Amber would have the advantage in rage but Amazi-Girl would have the advantage in skill, and I’d bet on Amazi-Girl.
Amber’s mistake is slowing down. All-nighters are easier when you keep the momentum going, whether you’re tearing an office apart or taking down your kidnapper and his gullible lackey.
You do have friends, but you are just a fucking depressed mess with a split personality disorder, sociopathic tendencies and self sabotaging tendencies that border on suicide sometimes. Also, Ruth really shouldn’t be RA considering her current situation, but Clint’s corruption allows an ex alcoholic to continue “watching over” vulnerable kids that need therapy and support instead of threats of physyical violence, and I am angry with myself for angreeing with cynical Rachel of all fucking people in this comic. Goddammit!
That’s kinda unfair to Ethan, Dina and even Sal, Dotty and Danny
Not to mention Walky (I mean, your lover doesn’t have to be your most important person, but one would think that they must be up there)
We are talking to a woman with self worth issues that doesn’t trust even her lovers and rejects people trying to be her friends and tried to use Dina for petty reasons like being a cockblocker.
Also her lover that she got with like… two weeks ago? Which was also roundabouts a couple weeks after she broke up with the previous one? That’s pretty much just a vaguely important fling at that point.
1- Considering the path where you beat up your RA should be a warning sign that this whole thing has gone off the rails.
2- Despite you talking around it, I THINK Ruth is going to be able to figure out that all the people she is worried about for disappearing with no explanation are, the very same ones who are the “friends” you say notice you, are also the ones being kidnapped.
3- Unlike Duh-orothy, I don’t think Ruth is going to even remotely accept the “This is fine, Amazi-girl can and should definitely be the only one to solve this, this is a reasonable position to have”. Ruth can’t know something like this and then not report it up her chain, both to the school and the police. She can’t say “Oh, I noticed many students were missing at the morning fire alarm, and then one of them told me they were kidnapped, which plausibly fit the facts of the situation. So I decided not to tell anyone.” That’s just not how the real world works.
4- If Amber attacks Ruth, she gets suspended/expelled from college and Blaine wins. Simple as that. So no Amber, you CAN’T guarantee that you’ll win if you face Ruth. The battle, MAYBE, but definitely not the war. You’re too tired and ill to think more than one step ahead though.
The problem is that Amber sees all this a vigilante comic where the only solution is a one woman army bringing down all the bad guys, when in real life one person alone can’t save everyone, and you need to get a force of many people to save other people.
Yeah agreed, if only a force of trained people could be brought into this, people who’ve had some training (no matter how minor) in this type of situation, people whose actual jobs are dealing with this kind of thing…
I still don’t think Blaine’s gonna kill anyone. Not the “can barely breath and walk right now let alone lift a hammer or choke someone to death” Blaine we last saw. Ross is in more of a position to kill someone but he’s been making slightly questionable looks of guilt and doesn’t have vague mob connections. I also doubt the hired goons signed up for murder. I’m not saying it’s impossible. Someone could pull out a gun although I’d say that would escalate things to an extreme beyond this but I still think probably not.
Yes. 100 percent of the time I would call the police. I would not be relying on a mask wearing, teenage girl (in fact anybody of any age or gender)
I would ignore Sarah because if she thinks shes safer with people that’ve just kidnapped her, thrown her down some stairs and threatened her then she would be with police then shes got some major issues seriously clouding her judgement
I would play the percentages and get the professionals in as soon as possible, the people that’ve trained for situations such as this
I know its called dumbing of age for a reason but the actions of some of the characters in this storyline are really stretching the bounds of credibility, to put it mildly
Yeeaaahhh as anti-police as I tend to be, this is the type of situation where we definitely call the police. A dozen over-militarized and relatively trained goons is better than one sleep-deprived, suicidally depressed girl with multiple personalities and anomalously good fighting skills.
Note that wasn’t in response to anything about Sarah’s anti-police attitude, but to “I still don’t think Blaine’s gonna kill anyone.” Not the dangers of the police, but the threat the kidnappers pose.
2-It’s not a full superhero comic, it has real world consequences for non-heroic things like being thrown out of your teacher’s assistant position for sleeping with a student, throwing up a lot if you try to quit your alcoholism cold turkey with no doctor consultation, getting bad grades if you don’t study for a challenging topic like calculus. PRETENDING it is a superhero comic is Amber’s coping mechanism for living with a toxic dad who is abusive to her is to BELIEVE the real world is a superhero comic. Which I guess there’s why there’s a burr under my collar with Dorothy, I think she’s kind of leaning into it and enabling it despite how she sees herself. I feel some readers are doing similar.
It’s a comic. Fine. Yes. I know they’re pixels on a screen, less than dead they never were. But we can reach into their world and try to draw lessons and principles for ours. I think it’s interesting the comic is complicated enough people have a wide variety of opinions on how the characters are acting. I just happen to espouse ones I feel about calling the grown-ups when things go off the rails.
It’s not full on and there are consequences for non-heroic things (which isn’t exactly unheard of in superhero comics either – see basically Peter Parker’s entire life), but it is still a superhero comic.
Amazi-Girl is Amber’s coping mechanism, but she can still go out and beat up gangs of thugs and fight abusive dads on speeding cars. She’s not just imaging that. Yeah, she almost died then (which is also a superhero trope), but ‘realistically’ she died long before that.
This would be stupid in real life, but it’s not nearly so stupid in the genre they’re living in. Dorothy acknowledges how her world works – though she is blind to the psychological problems it causes for Amber. Not recognizing that – denying that Amazi-Girl can do the things she’s been seen to do would be stupid.
I never knew I wanted this until the possibility presented itself, but somehow I wish for them to team up (with Ruth as a sidekick, or at least a distraction).
Of course it would be better if Ruth simply called the police after letting Amber go and getting some of the details of where they are (as she won’t be able to stop her, probably).
“Of course it would be better if Ruth simply called the police after letting Amber go and getting some of the details of where they are (as she won’t be able to stop her, probably).”
I’m sure all the cops for this district are controlled by this singular goomba who wasn’t even smart enough to chase someone on a segway.
Call the police then threaten to to go the media about the situation, if you’re so worried. Hard to do overtly corrupt bullshit if you’re worried that the public will actually hold you accountable. Even IF that puts your friends at risk, having a police force that continues to be controlled by an absolute lunatic is a huge risk to even MORE people.
Nothing in comic has indicated the cops are controlled by Blaine. There are cops on the take – which is true most places.
The threat, as I understand it, isn’t that you’ll call the cops and they’ll shoot you because they’re all working for the mob and are happy to just kill kids on some stooge’s say-so, but that one of the ones on the take will pass word along to Blaine that they’ve been called in and that puts the hostages at risk – maybe gives him time to get rid of them and clear out.
What would be REALLY interesting is if Ruth wins in a sort of Jedi mind trick mental combat, making a connection.
In a way, Ruth understands Amber better than most folks, living up with her overbearing military, um, grandpa I think? He seems like he kind of even had some good intentions, but in a super hard-boiled, stifling, war veteran way that seemed pretty hurtful to Ruth to live under.
Ruth might even have a flash of insight and say something like “If you attack me, your dad wins, if you don’t I’m calling in all the help I can get.”
Ruth struggles, but to me she actually seems concerned with doing the right thing even when it sucks.
Look, I’m not saying this isn’t Amber having a psychotic break since Mike fell, but I’m saying everythung since then has been Amber in a coma after diving to save him.
Sleepi-Girl lack of sleep may be contagious, but I don’t see Ruth calling the cops. Rachel, Mary, heck even Malaya, would definitely do that. But, Ruth? Seriously? If she calls someone, it will be Billie.
If Ruth is aware of a serious felony that has endangered multiple students and doesn’t involve the police, no one could save her job. Unless somehow it was all kept quiet and no one found out, which seems unlikely at this point.
Well, it’s another reason not to follow procedure and call the cops, since I was responding to a poster saying not doing so would cost her job. Whether or not it would be a good idea is a separate question, just that for her, getting fired isn’t a reason to not do so.
Honestly what disturbs most about this storyline is how familiar it is. When my couple became a triad, my original partner’s father went… All sorts of batshit crazy. To this day we don’t speak to him, and the only reason we don’t have a restraining order against him anymore is because there is no legal reason for us to, given how long he’s been away.
He was the dirtiest, scummiest, creepiest son of a bongo you could imagine. When all was said and done he terrifies me to this very day, and I always feel the shadow of him over our shoulders. I hope both of these jerks wind up in very unpleasant circumstances or very… permanently… peaceful ones.
a woman posted a pic in a group chat of a baby turkey she bought thinking it was a chicken. She captioned the pic "IS THIS A TURKEY?!?"
Anyway, I haven't been here because I've been yelling IS THIS A TURKEY at everything. You should try it
y'ever figure, hey, i should put joyce in bisexual flag colors for this storyline, but you also figure, hrm, that might telegraph things 8 months in advance, so you... add orange stripes and... it works, somehow it works, nobody points out the pink/purple/blue
Jonathan Joss being shot outside his home while protecting his husband after being sent a threatening and distressing package is WHY we need Pride
It's 2025 and people are still being shot and killed for being queer
This is why we march and why we fight
the thing about white liberal Americans is that they'll argue to accept bigots into their tent before accepting the bigots' targets.
the targets that have been on the same side as white liberals from the jump.
John Redcorn was pretty much the only contemporary Native representation I had in comedy growing up. Probably the funniest Native character in cartoon history and a lot of that was on Jonathan Joss' pitch perfect rezzy uncle performance. RIP to one of the best to ever do it.
today in #9chickweedlane i learned that, yes, lolly is so edda 2.0 that she's even wearing her mother's wedding dress as she gets married to Her Dad (But Taller)
online transformers collectors: i hope ss86 megatron doesn't have big ol' treads on his back!!!
ss86 megatron: *treads fold up inside the legs*
online transformers collectors: HIS LEGS ARE TOO CHUNKY >>>:((((
ETPC @etpc.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
Kendra, regular version @kendrawcandraw.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
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you can always unkidnap someone
emotional crises are FOREVER
They certainly feel like they last forever, at least.
Only roughly as long as the comic has been running and will run…so yeah, pretty much forever.
Amber needs some pudding. Maybe.
“Foot in the door”, go with the personal baggage first.
I did wonder why Amber’s last sentence didn’t end yesterday, and now she did.
She needs a Hostess Fruit Pie.
Everyone knows that if a superhero gives you a Hostess Fruit Pie, you need to cease all nefarious activities immediately.
It’s The Code.
That only works until you run into someone allergic to apples.
Or whatever the hell is in those pies. Nowadays if I eat one I’m sick for a whole week.
Unfortunately, that code was repealed in the 90’s and hostess fruit pies were replaced with M-16’s and katanas. Frankly, I preferred cupcakes.
… Pretty certain heroes shouldn’t try to de-escalate by giving their foes weaponry?
… You didn’t live through the 90s, did you? Everyone got guns and katanas. Even Casper.
Pouches, too.
But they had to trade in their feet for ’em.
And the ladies all got big leather jackets.
And a hairstyle that lives on in Chef Ann Burrell.
I wouldn’t know. I’m still recovering from the 60’s (the best parts of which actually happened in the early 70’s).
I thought that was Justice Fruit Pies.
Please say this somehow leads to the birth of Amazi-Ruth.
Man, that would really mess with Billie’s head.
I’m still hoping that Sal finds out, and gets Amber to let HER wear the suit for the evening…
Sal is taller and, not to be too blunt about it, not as zaftig as Amber. Quite frankly, there’s no way it would fit.
Besides, Sal’s got her leathers and her full-face helmet. She doesn’t NEED Amber’s outfit.
Today I learned what zaftig is, thank you random internet stranger.
Depends on what the suit is made out of and how much stretch there is in the fabric. Because she is taller, it might work.
The suit has room for a grappling hook and deity knows what else. The suit is made of hammerspace. It would fit Sal; heck, it would fit Beef
I like the name RAdical Girl.
the Salty SaLTruist
i also like Wham! Woman
I like “I Obviously Don’t Want My Identity Known So Quit Asking My Name Or I Remove Your Fe- Er, Teeth” Woman.
pation.
Is it chilly in here?
I’ll remove the cause, but not the symptom.
My faithful handyman. Er, handyperson?
Wait for it…
The Femur Remover, she who plays Flight of the Bumblebee on your ribs, using your femurs,
after… While she’s defeating you, but before you are totally dead, using Ruth’s R.A. Death Stare®️™️But then again, hindsight is 20/20.
But it’s clearly covered in Chapter 42 of the handbook, Handling Superheroes and Their Existential Crises.
maybe with contacts
Not for another 255ish days.
i see what you did there
To be honest, I had to think about it.
Kidnapping first please, Amber is an emotional wreck but that isn’t likely to kill her immediately. Now, will Ruth be able to help and not get herself, or anyone else, killed?
But it’s the emotional wreck part that keeping her from dealing with the kidnapping appropriately.
This is a lot to unpack at four in the morning, yeah.
This is a lot to unpack at any time of day, it being 4am just makes it more exhausting.
Except for Dorothy, who got up early to start the day. She should be at peak performance. Which, admittedly, isn’t Amber’s peak performance.
All the worst unpacking happens in the wee hours.
For example.
We’ve all been there.
—Request the data
What will it EFFECT
When all is done?
Thinks Major Tom
Four, Three, Two, One!
And I thought I was one of the few who remembers “Völlig Losgelöst”.
This post is quite the oddity… Yer singing it rather than putting it on the Muzak.
“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but just as much to stand up to your friends. I award ten points to Ruth Lessick.”
even more to moving Trucks .
( is that too soon? )
Personal Emotional Crises, first .obvs.
The emotional crisis kidnapping obviously.
the amazing crises and the emotional kidnapping
Just talk on the way to rescue everyone, you can unpack the emotions and save people at the same time. Heroes always have emotional breakthroughs during violence, right?
Sure. Violence concentrates the mind wonderfully.
How scary is Ruths Grandfather really?
i think she ought to put that to the test, Is he just a Mega karen or will he do outside violence to keep Ruths RA record clean ?
especially to N’er to well fathers
From what we’ve seen he isn’t, as long as you’re not Ruth or Howard. He has some personal grudge against their father, which he takes out on the kids (primarily Ruth).
A more sympathetic take than he deserves is that he blames Ruth’s dad for getting her mom killed. Unfortunately, that makes him hurt his only blood relatives left.
Reading between the lines another take is that he only blames Ruth’s dad because he took her mom out of his control.
Yeah, the hints that he’s physically abused at least Howard, and therefore probably also Ruth? That did not come out of nowhere.
Definitely Ruth, probably Howard – though it may ‘only’ be emotional abuse.
My suspicion has long been that Ruth’s mom married and left the country to get away from Clint’s abuse. If there were problems with her husband, it may have been partly that she was grasping for any way out.
While possible, that would imply Ruth’s dad wasn’t a scumbag and that would violate Dumbing of Age casualty. At least one parent must be a pile of crap and probably both.
If Clint’s tirade is anything to go by, Ruth and Howard’s father’s crime was being a “weak and unfaithful collection of mental problems”.
That could be a source of Ruth’s tendency to freeze like a deer in the headlights when the femur-ripping facade cracks. If she strongly resembles her mother, but acts like her father, that could make Clint fly off the handle even worse.
The problem is, we pretty much only have his distorted point of view to go by. As far as I know, Ruth’s parents didn’t appear in the Walkyverse, and Dumbiverse Ruth hasn’t said much about them.
Eh, just because he’s a piece of crap doesn’t mean that Ruth’s father wasn’t a cheating pile of crap. There’s room enough for many branches of awful.
Ruth’s father – Richard “Dick” Lesse – did appear in the Walkyverse. And he did cheat on her mom in that ‘verse at least (and with Billie’s mom, no less!), as Ruth found out to her chagrin when she was babysitting Billie and Walky one fateful day.
We know from Dumbingverse!Billie’s own words that her mom here has a tendency to “do business on every man known to her,” so it’s not implausible to think that Dick Lessick may have been similar.
Thanks, somehow I forgot about that part.
Certainly possible, but the only evidence for it is Clint’s description and I give less than no credibility to that. The parallel to the Walkyverse is suggestive, but Ruth’s background is sufficiently different that I don’t think it’s necessary.
Still, my main point was that I think your take was far too sympathetic. That Clint’s abusive ways go back farther and don’t just derive from the death of his daughter. His controlling abuse fits perfectly with hating the man who took his daughter out from under his thumb, ruining his plans for her.
Nah, when Ruth told Howie that their grandpa was going to pick them up after their parents died in a patreon strip, Howie’s immediate reaction was ‘Okay. I’ll stop crying.’
He’s already been an abusive piece of shit.
This is a layered problem.
everything.
Okay, who do I owe $5? Does this count as “Before the 20th”?
I’ll take it, but I think this counts as the 21st, so you might be in the clear.
OMG that sentence over 2 strips was PERFECT!!!
and lol @ butts!
So it’s supposed to be taken as read here that Ruth would totally win if they threw down right at this moment, right. Like that statement of confidence is just another sign that Amaziber is way too tired and not thinking straight.
I wouldn’t take that as read at all. So far, Ruth has had only one lick.
I gather there’ve been quite a few more than that with Billie.
“I could take you in my sleep.”
amber: evil dad kidnapping my friends is scary
also amber: and socially awkward! Did I mention how socially awkard it is!
I hella respect Ruth for seeing and articulating that dilemma so quickly.
Swiftly recognizing and diagnosing dilemmas is an oft-overlooked benefit of pessimism.
For instance, look at the entertainment value alone of swiftly diagnosing dilemmas that don’t actually exist.
I think Amber’s under selling Ruth a bit. Maybe she’s not Sal level but she’s at least a few tiers above a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses guy. I don’t think Amber could take her sleep deprived.
Sleep deprivation makes you stupid.
Ruth, time to play the sidekick.
That’s what I’m hoping will happen. Amazi-Girl with Ruth as a temporary sidekick to the rescue.
Now I do want to see who would win in a fight between Ruth and Amber. While I’m sure Amber would win, how long would it take? I’m still kinda fuzzy on what differentiates Amber from Amazi-Girl personality wise, so would Amber go easy on Ruth? Or is Amber the “bad” one? While I’m on the topic, theoretically, who would win in a fight? Amber or Amazi-Girl?
At the moment? Ruth would win. Because sleep.
Amber would lose but if the adrenaline kicked in in time, Amazi-Girl would win.
Since they share the same meat-sack (Amber’s term), Amber and Amazi-Girl couldn’t fight physically. But if they fought separately as clones or waldos, Amber would have the advantage in rage but Amazi-Girl would have the advantage in skill, and I’d bet on Amazi-Girl.
Amber’s mistake is slowing down. All-nighters are easier when you keep the momentum going, whether you’re tearing an office apart or taking down your kidnapper and his gullible lackey.
You do have friends, but you are just a fucking depressed mess with a split personality disorder, sociopathic tendencies and self sabotaging tendencies that border on suicide sometimes. Also, Ruth really shouldn’t be RA considering her current situation, but Clint’s corruption allows an ex alcoholic to continue “watching over” vulnerable kids that need therapy and support instead of threats of physyical violence, and I am angry with myself for angreeing with cynical Rachel of all fucking people in this comic. Goddammit!
Please tell me “angreeing” wasn’t just a typo, because such a perfect portmanteau isn’t invented every day!
It’s a typo and also reflects perfectly when I agree with people I dislike.
That’s kinda unfair to Ethan, Dina and even Sal, Dotty and Danny
Not to mention Walky (I mean, your lover doesn’t have to be your most important person, but one would think that they must be up there)
We are talking to a woman with self worth issues that doesn’t trust even her lovers and rejects people trying to be her friends and tried to use Dina for petty reasons like being a cockblocker.
Cockblocking herself?
Also her lover that she got with like… two weeks ago? Which was also roundabouts a couple weeks after she broke up with the previous one? That’s pretty much just a vaguely important fling at that point.
1- Considering the path where you beat up your RA should be a warning sign that this whole thing has gone off the rails.
2- Despite you talking around it, I THINK Ruth is going to be able to figure out that all the people she is worried about for disappearing with no explanation are, the very same ones who are the “friends” you say notice you, are also the ones being kidnapped.
3- Unlike Duh-orothy, I don’t think Ruth is going to even remotely accept the “This is fine, Amazi-girl can and should definitely be the only one to solve this, this is a reasonable position to have”. Ruth can’t know something like this and then not report it up her chain, both to the school and the police. She can’t say “Oh, I noticed many students were missing at the morning fire alarm, and then one of them told me they were kidnapped, which plausibly fit the facts of the situation. So I decided not to tell anyone.” That’s just not how the real world works.
4- If Amber attacks Ruth, she gets suspended/expelled from college and Blaine wins. Simple as that. So no Amber, you CAN’T guarantee that you’ll win if you face Ruth. The battle, MAYBE, but definitely not the war. You’re too tired and ill to think more than one step ahead though.
The problem is that Amber sees all this a vigilante comic where the only solution is a one woman army bringing down all the bad guys, when in real life one person alone can’t save everyone, and you need to get a force of many people to save other people.
Yeah agreed, if only a force of trained people could be brought into this, people who’ve had some training (no matter how minor) in this type of situation, people whose actual jobs are dealing with this kind of thing…
Call the Uggtroopers!
The Avengers?
It can’t be the cops because Blaine, a guy who thinks ROSS is a useful tool, somehow controls all the cops.
Not all, but some and we don’t know which ones. And all he’d really need is a tip off from one on the take and he’s in position to kill hostages.
I still don’t think Blaine’s gonna kill anyone. Not the “can barely breath and walk right now let alone lift a hammer or choke someone to death” Blaine we last saw. Ross is in more of a position to kill someone but he’s been making slightly questionable looks of guilt and doesn’t have vague mob connections. I also doubt the hired goons signed up for murder. I’m not saying it’s impossible. Someone could pull out a gun although I’d say that would escalate things to an extreme beyond this but I still think probably not.
You may be right, but is it really a bluff you’d want to call?
If it was your helpless friends on the line?
Yes. 100 percent of the time I would call the police. I would not be relying on a mask wearing, teenage girl (in fact anybody of any age or gender)
I would ignore Sarah because if she thinks shes safer with people that’ve just kidnapped her, thrown her down some stairs and threatened her then she would be with police then shes got some major issues seriously clouding her judgement
I would play the percentages and get the professionals in as soon as possible, the people that’ve trained for situations such as this
I know its called dumbing of age for a reason but the actions of some of the characters in this storyline are really stretching the bounds of credibility, to put it mildly
Yeeaaahhh as anti-police as I tend to be, this is the type of situation where we definitely call the police. A dozen over-militarized and relatively trained goons is better than one sleep-deprived, suicidally depressed girl with multiple personalities and anomalously good fighting skills.
Note that wasn’t in response to anything about Sarah’s anti-police attitude, but to “I still don’t think Blaine’s gonna kill anyone.” Not the dangers of the police, but the threat the kidnappers pose.
The other problem is that it is a superhero comic, not real life.
1- I appreciate all y’alls.
2-It’s not a full superhero comic, it has real world consequences for non-heroic things like being thrown out of your teacher’s assistant position for sleeping with a student, throwing up a lot if you try to quit your alcoholism cold turkey with no doctor consultation, getting bad grades if you don’t study for a challenging topic like calculus. PRETENDING it is a superhero comic is Amber’s coping mechanism for living with a toxic dad who is abusive to her is to BELIEVE the real world is a superhero comic. Which I guess there’s why there’s a burr under my collar with Dorothy, I think she’s kind of leaning into it and enabling it despite how she sees herself. I feel some readers are doing similar.
It’s a comic. Fine. Yes. I know they’re pixels on a screen, less than dead they never were. But we can reach into their world and try to draw lessons and principles for ours. I think it’s interesting the comic is complicated enough people have a wide variety of opinions on how the characters are acting. I just happen to espouse ones I feel about calling the grown-ups when things go off the rails.
It’s not full on and there are consequences for non-heroic things (which isn’t exactly unheard of in superhero comics either – see basically Peter Parker’s entire life), but it is still a superhero comic.
Amazi-Girl is Amber’s coping mechanism, but she can still go out and beat up gangs of thugs and fight abusive dads on speeding cars. She’s not just imaging that. Yeah, she almost died then (which is also a superhero trope), but ‘realistically’ she died long before that.
This would be stupid in real life, but it’s not nearly so stupid in the genre they’re living in. Dorothy acknowledges how her world works – though she is blind to the psychological problems it causes for Amber. Not recognizing that – denying that Amazi-Girl can do the things she’s been seen to do would be stupid.
I never knew I wanted this until the possibility presented itself, but somehow I wish for them to team up (with Ruth as a sidekick, or at least a distraction).
Of course it would be better if Ruth simply called the police after letting Amber go and getting some of the details of where they are (as she won’t be able to stop her, probably).
“Of course it would be better if Ruth simply called the police after letting Amber go and getting some of the details of where they are (as she won’t be able to stop her, probably).”
Yup
I mean, we’ve been explicitly told that the cops are on the take. They won’t be helping.
I’m fairly sure both Mike and Amber’s opinions are….I don’t want to say insane.
But highly-highly biased by their worldviews.
“Cops are on the take”
I’m sure all the cops for this district are controlled by this singular goomba who wasn’t even smart enough to chase someone on a segway.
Call the police then threaten to to go the media about the situation, if you’re so worried. Hard to do overtly corrupt bullshit if you’re worried that the public will actually hold you accountable. Even IF that puts your friends at risk, having a police force that continues to be controlled by an absolute lunatic is a huge risk to even MORE people.
Nothing in comic has indicated the cops are controlled by Blaine. There are cops on the take – which is true most places.
The threat, as I understand it, isn’t that you’ll call the cops and they’ll shoot you because they’re all working for the mob and are happy to just kill kids on some stooge’s say-so, but that one of the ones on the take will pass word along to Blaine that they’ve been called in and that puts the hostages at risk – maybe gives him time to get rid of them and clear out.
What would be REALLY interesting is if Ruth wins in a sort of Jedi mind trick mental combat, making a connection.
In a way, Ruth understands Amber better than most folks, living up with her overbearing military, um, grandpa I think? He seems like he kind of even had some good intentions, but in a super hard-boiled, stifling, war veteran way that seemed pretty hurtful to Ruth to live under.
Ruth might even have a flash of insight and say something like “If you attack me, your dad wins, if you don’t I’m calling in all the help I can get.”
Ruth struggles, but to me she actually seems concerned with doing the right thing even when it sucks.
Look, I’m not saying this isn’t Amber having a psychotic break since Mike fell, but I’m saying everythung since then has been Amber in a coma after diving to save him.
Sleepi-Girl lack of sleep may be contagious, but I don’t see Ruth calling the cops. Rachel, Mary, heck even Malaya, would definitely do that. But, Ruth? Seriously? If she calls someone, it will be Billie.
Mary would use this to manipulate people, not call law enforcement. I swear she was skinning kittens when she was 5, she had to be.
“Skinning” is such an ugly word. Let’s take the S off of there and see what we’re left with.
Dorothy is the keener, not Mary.
So…I just spent the last 4 days reading this comic from start to current. Wow what a ride. Can Ruth man….I am LOVING her right now.
Amber is right but ngl, I’d love to see those two going at it, full strength.
If Ruth is aware of a serious felony that has endangered multiple students and doesn’t involve the police, no one could save her job. Unless somehow it was all kept quiet and no one found out, which seems unlikely at this point.
Oh look, yet another reason not to go to the police.
Yes, you can’t say there’s a murder if you don’t show people the body!
…
Wait.
No, more “I’ll get fired and Sir can’t stop them? I’m in.”
That would mean Ruth put getting fired over the safety of her peeps.
Well, it’s another reason not to follow procedure and call the cops, since I was responding to a poster saying not doing so would cost her job. Whether or not it would be a good idea is a separate question, just that for her, getting fired isn’t a reason to not do so.
They won’t be on speaking terms if they’re dead, so let’s start with that.
Unless they’re Miked and start living in Ambers mind of course.
Honestly what disturbs most about this storyline is how familiar it is. When my couple became a triad, my original partner’s father went… All sorts of batshit crazy. To this day we don’t speak to him, and the only reason we don’t have a restraining order against him anymore is because there is no legal reason for us to, given how long he’s been away.
He was the dirtiest, scummiest, creepiest son of a bongo you could imagine. When all was said and done he terrifies me to this very day, and I always feel the shadow of him over our shoulders. I hope both of these jerks wind up in very unpleasant circumstances or very… permanently… peaceful ones.
Ruth is a good person. I like her and how much she care about others.
Well, once her own personal demons of self loathing were dealt with, she became capable of feeling empathy for others.
Hey, the R.A. handbook has proven adequate for every other R.A. at this institution. It’s this hallway specifically that’s the problem.
But they’re not central characters to the story.
Maybe every other wing is just as messed up as Ruth’s, and we just don’t see it…
That’s my working theory.
The kidnapping, address the kidnapping; the personal issues can be dealt with, at anytime, the kidnapping is the, “right now”, thing.
Super hero team up time!
“How about we talk this over over a cup of coffee? Three or four cups of coffee?”